Position in chronology
SAA 07 195. Aššur Temple Offerings (ADD 1009)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) 2 'litres' of loaves [...]. (2) A 2-seah jar of bu[dê]-confection; (3) a 2-seah jar of [hammurtu]-beer; (4) a 2-seah jar of a[mūmu]-beer; (5) a cup of fi[g]-beer; (6) a ditto of small onio[ns]; (7) a basket of (mixed) fru[it]. (r 1) (All) before Ištar, the [xth] day. (r 2) Care of Tur[î]. (r 3) A thigh, a shoul[der], (r 4) [1] female [spring la]mb [...]. (Rest destroyed)
Source: Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1992. Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. SAA 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa07/P335830/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢02 qa NINDA-MEŠ⸣ [x x] / DUG.2(bán) bu-[de-e] / DUG.2(bán) KAŠ.[ḫa-mur-ti] / DUG.2(bán) KAŠ.a-⸢mu⸣-[me] / DUG.qa-ZAG ṭí-i-[ṭi] / DUG.:* an-daḫ-⸢še⸣ / GIŠ.sa-al-lu za-am-⸢ri⸣ / ša IGI d15 UD [x-KÁM] / ina ŠU.2 mtu-⸢ri⸣-[i] / UZU.ÚR ⸢UZU⸣.[ZAG] / [01 UDU].⸢NIM*⸣-tu ⸢x⸣+[x x x] / [x x x] ⸢x x⸣ [x x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335830.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335830). source
Translation excerpted from Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1992. Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. SAA 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa07/P335830/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.